Sex/gender differences in the brain are not trivial-A commentary on Eliot et al. (2021).

biopsychosocial gender difference gender-sensitive psychiatry hemispheric asymmetry meta-analysis sex difference sex hormones sexual dimorphism

Journal

Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
ISSN: 1873-7528
Titre abrégé: Neurosci Biobehav Rev
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 7806090

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
11 2021
Historique:
received: 28 05 2021
revised: 02 09 2021
accepted: 06 09 2021
pubmed: 13 9 2021
medline: 21 10 2021
entrez: 12 9 2021
Statut: ppublish

Résumé

In this commentary to the comprehensive review by Eliot et al. (2021), we fully comply with rejecting the 'sexual dimorphism' concept in its extreme, binary form. However, we criticise the authors' extreme position and argue that sex/gender differences in the brain are far from being 'trivial' and 'unlikely to be meaningful'. Our key arguments refer to the importance of small effects which can have meaningful behavioural consequences, and to several non-binary sex/gender-related factors which might explain individual differences better than sex/gender per se and which have shown to play important roles as risk factors in the aetiology of many mental and neurodevelopmental disorders. We conclude that the biopsychosocial approach is key to understanding sex/gender differences in the brain better than we currently do.

Identifiants

pubmed: 34509515
pii: S0149-7634(21)00394-8
doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.09.012
pii:
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Review

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Pagination

408-409

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Auteurs

Marco Hirnstein (M)

Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway. Electronic address: marco.hirnstein@uib.no.

Markus Hausmann (M)

Department of Psychology, Durham University, United Kingdom.

Classifications MeSH